If he does, can he deny that many acts of Christ were
wonderful;--that reanimating a dead body in which putrefaction had
already commenced,--and feeding four thousand men with a few loaves and
fishes, so that the fragments left greatly exceeded the original total
quantity,--were wonderful events? Should such a man, 'compos mentis',
exist, (which I more than doubt,) what could a wise man do but
stare--and leave him? Christ wrought many wonderful works, implying
admirable power, and directed to the most merciful and beneficent ends;
and these acts were such signs of his divine mission, as rendered
inattention or obstinate averseness to the truths and doctrines which he
promulgated, inexcusable, and indeed on any hypothesis but that of
immoral dispositions and prejudices, utterly inconceivable. In what
respect, I pray, can this statement be strengthened by any reasoning
about the nature and distinctive essence of miracles 'in abstracto'?
What purpose can be answered by any pretended definition of a miracle?
If I met with a disputatious word-catcher, or logomachist, who sought to
justify his unbelief on this ground, I should not hesitate to
say--"Never mind whether it is a miracle or no. Call it what you
will;--but do you believe the fact? Do you believe that Christ did by
force of his will and word multiply instantaneously twelve loaves and a
few small fishes, into sufficient food for a hungering multitude of four
thousand men and women?" When I meet with, or from credible authority
hear of, a man who believes this fact, and yet thinks it no sign of
Christ's mission; when I can even conceive of a man in his right senses
who, believing all the facts and events related in the New Testament,
and as there related, does yet remain a Deist, I may think it time to
enter into a disquisition respecting the right definition of a miracle;
and meantime, I humbly trust that believing with my whole heart and soul
in the wonderful works of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I shall not
forfeit my title of Christian, though I should not subscribe to this or
that divine's right definition of his 'idea' of a miracle; which word is
with me no 'idea' at all, but a general term; the common surname, as it
were, of the wonderful works wrought by the messengers of God to man in
the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations.
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